Reacting to my favourite tweets of the week 2

Welcome back to my blog.It’s another end of the week and another set of tweets to react to.How’s your weekend going? Or how was your weekend? Depending on when you read this. I had menstrual cramps all throughout today and I hate it here.Anyway, let’s dive right into it.

Tweet 1

I’ve always said I’m not a hard girl. And don’t refer to me as a strong woman please. I crave softness and ease in every aspect of my life.

Tweet 2

Period. And the Holy Spirit too.

Tweet 3

I like gist and I don’t want the half chop. I want the complete version please. Since you want to call the public into your drama you may as well do it well.

Tweet 4

They’re literally shouting my name. I feel like my whole life is brand new. And it makes me love cleaning, rearranging and decluttering my space.

Tweet 5

Yup! This has to be said. Don’t go ahead giving unsolicited advice. They already know and don’t need you to point it out. Like she said, nobody owes you clear skin. And mind the business that pays you.

Tweet 6

Yup! Now the rest of you mortals should bow to your queen😂😂

Hope you enjoyed this post! Which tweet was your favourite?Don’t forget to like, comment and follow me😊

Reacting to my favourite tweets of the week

Welcome back to my blog.

It’s Friday, my favourite day of the week and I’ll be sharing my thoughts on random tweets I loved this week.

Tweet 1

This has to be written in bold letters for every Nigerian University. Public ones especially. They are after our mental health through and through.

Tweet 2

Because God would always answer your prayers. Sometimes it may not be how we want the it, but He makes all things beautiful in His time.

Tweet 3

This is my year of confrontation. As a quiet person, I tend to overlook a lot of things and sweep things under the carpet but I’ve learned that I have to voice my opinions and have conversations even when I’m not comfortable. Confronting people has really been hard for me but it’s something that I’m easing into this year.

Tweet 4

This is not a tweet but I’m relating to this. One thing I’m not going to do is assume something and end up looking foolish in the end. I may or may not ask to clarify things, depending on the situation. But I will not accept hints and assume.

Tweet 5

Whew! This one. This one was shouting at me and I remember how January this year went for me. I felt like a zombie most days. Life can come at you fast, so we should learn to take breaks. There’s no award for sufferhead.

Tweet 6

Last year September I was praying to God for something in my life and it got me constantly worrying. It was a very serious case that my parents noticed it from when I was in school. I lost my appetite and had to go home. I had already thought of the worst situation if God didn’t answer my request the way I wanted him to and I was going through a lot. God finally granted me my request and I felt at peace but anytime I remember how I felt and reacted during that waiting period, I don’t feel good at all. So many nights wasted on worrying.

Tweet 7

I find it very rude actually. This should be literal common sense, but again, common sense is not common. Do you know if I have enough data? Do you know where I am or if I can talk at that moment? Do we even have that kind of rapport? A lot goes into video calling. Sometimes, depending on the person, I’ll even text before I do a normal voice call.

That’s it for this post. Tell me which was your favourite in the comments.

Hope we all have a calm, relaxing weekend cause we deserve it✌️.

Don’t forget to like, share and follow me if you haven’t.

Thank you!

Things I miss about having relaxed hair

Welcome back to my blog.

I was moisturizing my mini twists and I realized that it’s been over 2 years I cut my relaxed hair and over 3 years since I relaxed my hair. I transitioned for about a year.

So I was going down memory lane and it was a good one. I hardly knew anything about haircare in my relaxed hair days. The only thing I did intentionally for my hair was stretching my retouching to every 5 months because I noticed retouching every 2, 3 months was making my hair weak.

Then applying ori(Shea butter) because there was this rave about Shea butter. I think it was the period when having natural hair became more popular. Everybody was swearing by Shea butter and coconut oil for their hair.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I hardly did anything haircare to my relaxed hair apart from relaxing, applying hair cream(sometimes Vaseline) and braiding my hair) but it was growing fairly okay till it reached a plateau and never passed my collar bone. And I had my relaxed hair for about 6years.

Dealing with my natural hair meant a change of lifestyle literally. I could no longer be nonchalant about it the way I was with my relaxed hair. It was kind of easy though because I transitioned so I eased into it. And let me tell you, if you think maintaining natural hair is hard, try transitioning hair. It was twice as hard because you’ll be dealing with 2 completely different textures of hair.

I miss being able to comb my hair freely.

I can’t do that anymore with natural hair. My hair has to be damp with water or saturated with conditioner for proper detangling. Infact since going natural I don’t comb my hair as much. I basically only comb on washdays and I finger detangle every other time. I remember I could comb my relaxed hair dry but I don’t have that luxury anymore.

My relaxed hair wasn’t thick thick.

You guys, my natural hair is thick thick. Now don’t get me wrong, I love it but sometimes it’s just a lot. Especially the top of my hair. I can’t pull my hair into a low ponytail easily because of it and it stresses me out.

There was no shrinkage

This should have been the first point because!!!!! My hair shrinks a lottttt. Even when it’s not wet. My hair shrinks when it’s exposed to air so I can’t go out and come back with the same hair length and it’s so annoying.

I can’t impulsively put my hair in any style.

My hairstyles have to be planned. You know how you can just wake up one morning and feel like wearing a wig? I don’t have that luxury because if my hair wasn’t in cornrows prior to that time, I can’t wear the wig because like I said, my hair is thick and I can’t put it in a smooth ponytail easily or do quick cornrows because it won’t be flat enough to wear a wig on top. And ain’t nobody wearing a wig that doesn’t lay flat on my head so that’s a no. It’s a whole lot. I have to know what I want for my hair before the morning.

There were no single strand knots.

With shrinkage comes single strand knots and that can be very hard to work with. And tangles too. My hair tangles a lot. I didn’t have to bother about this with relaxed hair.

My hairstyles lasted longer.

Natural hair gets frizzy very fast and that makes hairstyles look old faster. My braids could comfortably last 2 months with relaxed hair and I only had to worry about my roots but now the roots and body of the braids start looking old from 3 weeks, 1 month if it was braided tightly and with proper care. My cornrows look old after 1 week(I usually make about 10 cornrows).

I have trust issues with people handling my hair.

I’ve only been to the salon a number of times since going natural but it always ends in tears. It’s either they’re not handling my hair carefully or the grip for the weaving is too tight. It’s always something and these hairdressers do not listen to complains. It’s like they don’t care what you want. Luckily I can do my hair myself and I enjoy doing it but sometimes I want to relax and let someone else do it but it always ends in tears. The one time I went to a so called natural hair salon, I wasn’t impressed with how my hair was handled. I would try out some more natural hair salons, but they’re more expensive than regular hair salons.

Do you miss your relaxed hair if you’ve ever relaxed your hair?

Thank you so much for reading.

Don’t forget to like, comment and share✌️

Back to blogging|Life Update

The title of this post in my head is are we still reading blogs in 2022?

Hey Guys. Happy New Year I guess. I was just telling my friend that Nigerians will say happy new year till April and now look at me. Anyway, I’ve been prompted me to dust this blog and get back to blogging. I mean, I have so many posts sitting in my drafts but I’ve been feeling a certain kind of way about them.

Talking of drafts, I lost my drafts in December when I sort of lost the apps in my phone and when I was trying to log in back into WordPress I kind of forgot my password so it was a whole lot of stress and long story short, I lost my drafts. So I’ve been thinking of what my ‘welcome’ back post should be after not blogging in a while.

I’ve been overthinking a lot, even though I try to not overthink. It’s really a bad habit. And once I start overthinking like that, it either I find a way to just do what I feel would be good immediately or I just abandon it completely to get my mind off it. There’s literally no in between. And unfortunately the latter happened with this blog.

So I’m back and this is a very impromptu post. Basically to see if I still have any kind of traffic on this blog and to give me a push to start back blogging. I really miss blogging. I had a whole lot of things keeping me from blogging apart from what I said above. My phone being the biggest challenge then school.

Anyway, a little life update. I wish I could say I’m done with school, I’m almost done with 400 level so 2 more years to go. I had my first clinical posting in the hospital for a month and I blogged about it but I lost my drafts like I said. I could do it again, that’s if anybody is interested (let me know in the comments)

The highlight of my 2021 was that I finally started my brand as a hairstylist. You guys know I love hair and it took a lot of back and forth but I finally made it official. I have a brand now, still yet to have a social media presence because again, my phone. So I’m slowly building my portfolio and when I get a new phone we can start with the social media presence.

Shout out to Ada @mopelolaaukpai for this beautiful flyer

So this year, I plan to do a whole lot of reviews. I’ve used a bunch of products for my hair and if anybody is like me, I don’t just buy products blindly. I love to read or watch reviews about the product before I buy. And it’s quite hard to find reviews of cheaper or let me say less popular products which are the products I usually buy so doing reviews of the ones I’ve used would be guiding somebody to make a decision on whether to buy a product or not.

I also wanted to blog about skincare this year. 2021 was my skincare year and I learnt a lot of things about skincare so I want to share my skincare journey too. But I’m not sure if to do that here or to open a separate blog for just skincare because I was going through my blog and even though my main niche is natural hair, it’s kind of too all over the place. But throwing the question to you guys, what topics and type of content would you like to see here?

How have you all been? What’s been going on? How did Valentine’s day go? Let’s gist in the comments section

Unlearning and Relearning||Romanticizing Suffering

Welcome back to my blog 🙋

So this has been on my mind for a while. It feels like if you don’t have a sad story before your success, people don’t take you serious or they feel you don’t deserve it.

In Nigeria we glorify suffering so much that it’s like we’re in a suffering contest. Everybody wants to hear a grass to grace story before they feel you deserve success or they base your achievement on how much suffering you had to go through first and because of this some people fake a grass to grace story.

Can never be me though because I’m a grace to greater grace child. Sure I’ve had some struggles and setbacks here and there but I would not emphasize on them to make me feel better or more deserving of what I have or who I am. Am I making sense? I choose to focus on my blessings and not things I’m lacking.

If you can’t talk about how you trekked to school barefoot because you couldn’t afford shoes(no shade to former president Goodluck Jonathan) you’ve not ‘seen anything’.

When you bring up an issue or a complain to a group of people be rest assured that there’s somebody ready to beat your complain with a worse experience, whether it’s true or not. Sometimes it may even be to invalidate your feelings because ‘you haven’t seen anything’. And the worst thing is that these people want you to go through the same suffering because they feel they turned out ‘okay’. Sorry sis, bro, you are not okay! You’re traumatized and you need to heal.

This is also why bullying takes place. Cyber bullying especially. There are a bunch of unhappy people who are not okay seeing people not suffering or struggling before they succeed. Some people go as far as holding grudges and so because of that they would decide to hate random people because of that or for other petty reasons. Sometimes, you don’t even know the whole story behind someone’s success.

We should make peace with ourselves and focus on our blessings. Don’t invalidate people’s struggles because you’ve been through worse. If people feel tired after working for 4 hours when you work for 6 hours without getting tired it doesn’t mean they can’t feel how they feel because you’ve had it worse.

Suffering doesn’t lead you to a better part. You can be successful and learn valuable lessons without going through suffering.

Stop romanticizing suffering!

It felt good to let this out whew!

Remember when I said I scheduled a post last week? It was this post. I’ve hoarded this for so long because I wasn’t sure how it would be received but I’ve chosen to put on my big girl panties and just publish it.

Don’t forget to like, comment and share if you enjoyed reading this✌️😊

No Knowledge Is A Waste

Welcome back to my blog 🙋

I’m typing this in class during my break that I’m supposed to be using to take a nap because I’m so tired but I enjoyed the class that just finished which prompted me to make this post.

I had initially scheduled a post for 12pm but I held that back to do this instead. Can we deviate a little to talk about my new found consistentcy? I don’t want to abandon this blog again.

Back to the topic of the day. No knowledge is a waste. It’s such a popular phrase I’m sure we’ve heard so many times and yeah it’s true.

So earlier this year I took skincare seriously and started doing research on proper skincare, I was exposed to a lot of new things I never knew about. I was intrigued about a lot of ingredients and a lot of terms so I kept on reading different articles and blogs. I learnt a lot from skincare Instagram. It was where I learnt about anti-oxidants and their use in skincare.

I went ahead to read during my leisure and understand what these anti-oxidants are all about and how they work. Today I had a pathology class this morning and because of how bulky our timetable is I don’t always get time to read ahead of each class and yesterday was one of those days where I didn’t read ahead of class today.

So in my pathology class we were taught inflammation. Anti-oxidants found it’s way into the topic. Not in skincare though, but since I already understood the mechanism of how anti-oxidants work I was able to flow with the class.

It’s so important to read wide. Having knowledge of something doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll use it. Conversations can come up and your input would be very necessary. Opportunities may surface and something you learnt or read about a while ago would save the day.

Meanwhile, this is my 100th post on this blog. Yay to me!!

What’s one thing you’ve learnt that you think you’ll never use? Mine is trigonometry and calculus.

Thanks for reading✌️

6 Reasons Why Protective Styles Are Damaging Your Hair

Welcome back to my blog 🙋

Anytime I’m asked how I grow my hair I always say I just make my hair and make sure it’s always moisturized. Now when I say moisturized I don’t mean applying oil or hair cream to my hair or the actual LOC or LCO(leave in conditioner, oil and cream) method but that’s a whole separate story.

Today we’ll be discussing on how protective styles can do more harm than good to your natural hair. But before that you should know that I protective styles are really good and I swear by them. Why?

It reduces knots and tangles in your hair and keeps it more manageable.
It gives your hair a break from frequent styling or manipulation.
Protects your hair from harsh weather.
Reduces hands in hair syndrome.
Helps retain length.
Allows you to easily switch up your style.

Now if they do these great things for your hair how can they still damage your hair?

It’s too tight.

Do we still make styles that snatches away our edges in 2021? No ma’am, miss me with that. Your style can be neat without it being tight, don’t believe that lie we grew up with that tight hairstyles last longer. If it’s too tight, it causes too much tension on your scalp and can damage your hair follicles causing hair breakage or worse, hair loss.

You don’t prep your hair properly.

Since your hair is going to be tucked away for a while you need to make sure that it’s clean, deep conditioned and properly moisturized. Do not put away dirty or dry hair in a protective style.

You abandon your hair.

I know protective styles give you a break from your hair but it doesn’t mean you should totally abandon your hair. Leaving your hair dry in protective styles is doing more harm than good. You need to regularly moisturize your hair, oil your scalp and clean your scalp every 2 or 3 weeks.

Sleeping without a satin/silk scarf, bonnet or pillowcase.

With natural hair, we’re trying to avoid dryness at all cost and this is a good way to do so. I’ve recently started wrapping a satin scarf around my pillow because I sometimes get lazy and sleep without my bonnet or scarf. Protecting your hair properly also prevents your protective style from getting frizzy early.

You leave it in for too long.

It can be very tempting to leave your protective style for long because it’s easier to manage but that’s not a good idea. If you leave your protective style for too long your hair would be dehydrated and extremely tangled when you want to take your hair down. Your protective style should last you anywhere between 2-6 weeks. 8 weeks is okay but that’s a stretch for the brave.

You’re not gentle when taking them out.

Now that you can feel the new growth through your braids and it’s time to take it down, if you’re not gentle with the process you’ll be losing the length you were able to gain while your hair was tucked away. Your hair is going to be fragile since it has been away for a while so you have to handle your hair with care.

Are you guilty of any of these? In my next post I’ll be sharing how to take down your protective style properly and retain all the length you gained.

Thanks for reading✌️

What Having Acne Has Taught Me

Welcome back to my blog.

There’s always something to learn from every challenge you face and having acne is no different. I’ll be sharing 6 things I’ve learnt dealing with acne.

Patience

This is like the biggest of all. Acne doesn’t go overnight and no product can work overnight either. It takes a whole lottttttt of patience to see a drastic difference. And most times with acne treatments it gets worse before it gets better so you have to stay strong and consistent.

Empathy and kindness

You know you reap what you sow? Do to others what you want others to do to you. Physical flaws are just physical flaws. Having acne has made me able to empathize with what others go through, be it acne or not. It has made me sensitive and gentle towards others. I would never point out physical flaws, not even in a joking manner because you don’t know what that person is going through.

Self-care

And I’m not just talking about the physical part. I’ve learnt to be gentle and easy with myself. It’s not my fault that I have acne. Periodt! Acne affects mental health a whole lot and so it’s important to protect your mental health so I take it one day at a time. There’s only much I can physically do. I take time to breath and tell myself I’m more than how my skin looks anytime I feel down.

Positivity

I’ve learnt to be positive because I know that one day it would go away. That’s where my love for affirmation comes from. Yes, acne can’t be cured completely but it can be managed if you know your triggers and stay clear from them.

Discipline/Consistentcy

Whew! There are days where all I want to do after a long day is to just lay down and sleep but I remember that I have to at least wash my face. It’s not easy being consistent but it’s worth it.

Don’t panic

I only learnt this last month. With every fresh batch of breakout it comes with the urge to just make it go away so as soon as it forms a head I’ll be quick to pop it😩 The breakout I had in May taught me this lesson. After 2 months plus of no serious breakouts, when I had one in May during my exams I just wanted it to go away so I began popping and pressing and stressing and doing the most so it’ll go away. When it finally went it left serious dark spots on a particular area of my face which have now set me back. But we move. Now I no longer pop my pimples. I’ll let it run its course and go away.

Do you struggle with acne? What have you learnt?

Thanks for reading✌️

Story Corner||”What’s wrong with your face?”

Welcome back to my blog.

People can be really insensitive and this post is going to be very short. I’ll be sharing what happened to me early this year.

Like I said in my previous skincare post, I started this year with good skin. But somehow I had a very bad breakout just about when school was supposed to resume so I felt really bad. I was going to be resuming school after a year with fresh breakouts. I consoled myself and told myself it is what it is.

So as part of my preparation for school I needed to take new passport which is something I should have done earlier on, but procrastination won’t let me be great so I was forced to take it last minute with fresh breakouts on my skin😩 I felt insecure about my skin already but I didn’t have a choice.

On my way to school I stopped at a random studio to take the passport and all was good and fine until it was it was time to print out the picture and then the million dollar question was asked. “What is wrong with your face?” My guy didn’t stop there oh. He went ahead to tell me that I’m a fine girl but I should look for what to do to my skin. “Is it that you don’t wash your face? If you use Dettol soap all those things would clear in one week but you girls want to use all the beauty soap that would bleach you and destroy your face”

I was mortified. Have you ever been shocked that you don’t know what to say or how to react? That was how I felt. I wanted to cry there. I took my passport and left the place. I cried to sleep that night because I was hurt. I have had my fair share of rude stares and unsolicited advice but hurtful comments like that was my first time.

Acne is normal. It can happen to anybody and even adults. Not only teenagers suffer acne. It may just come in your adult years if you missed it as a teenager so be kind to others. It’s not expensive to be kind.

And no, acne just doesn’t go away. Stop bullying people who are trying to find a way to cure it. Stop telling them they have too many products and that’s what’s causing more problems.

Be kind. It costs nothing!

Thanks for reading.

Hair Update|Dry Hair, Extreme Shedding, Bald Edges And A Drastic Trim.

Welcome back to my blog 🙋

This is an old post that has been sitting in my drafts since April. I just didn’t get to edit and upload it before my exams in May and after exams I forgot about it. I just wanted to publish it before I bring out the new natural hair content I have stashed in the drafts.

My hair went through IT this year whew!

After the braids I did in late January which I took down mid March, my hair has been going through a lot. I finished 1st semester exams last month and I’m preparing for another one next month so my hair is the last thing on my mind. When I took down the braids, my ends were raggedy and rough because the girl that braided my hair thought it wise to comb my hair with a rat tail comb while dry despite my complains but that’s a story for another day. So I had to trim quite an amount of hair.

I’ve always heard that stress can affect your hair and skin but I had never experienced it on my hair before now. My skin usually gets most of the effect. Once I’m stressed, it would start showing from my face but my hair has always been a strong girl. She couldn’t take much this time I guess. My skin hasn’t really acted up yet. I’ve been maintaining beauty with all these stress.

This has been the most stressful time of my life. My routine has been wake up, eat, go to class to read, sleep, eat, read in the hostel, complain,rant or cry then read again.

My hair has been in cornrows for the most part but it’s currently in twists now. It has been dry and feels so crusty. The shedding is also crazy. I try to avoid using combs now because that’s a recipe for disaster so I use my fingers to detangle.

My edges? They’re slowly getting bald. It doesn’t also help that I sometimes twirl loose hair around my edges when I’m stressed, anxious or reading and I’ve been reading a lot, so yeah.

I’m consciously trying to at least spritz my hair with water or a moisturizing spray everyday before I go to class since I put my hair in twists and it has helped to an extent.

Update

My exams have come and gone and yeah I passed😊. April and May especially, was the most stressful time of my life. I had 6 weeks to prepare for my exam. And the exam ran for 3 weeks. Those 9 weeks? Horrible. But I’m happy it’s over.

My hair is in a better place now. The shedding has stopped, it’s no longer extra dry and my edges are growing back.

I had kinky twists before my exam started so I wouldn’t be bothered about it. Right now my hair is getting better and I love that for me.

Thanks for reading.

See you in my post✌️